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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 27: 27: Schedule 2, page 54, line 28, leave out ““the testing of embryos”” and insert ““embryological techniques and embryo storage”” The noble Baroness said: At this stage of the afternoon when I was at school we were allowed to put our heads down on the desk for two minutes for thinking time, but I suspect that we are not allowed such luxury here. I rise to move this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Barker, who cannot be here today. We are concerned that training in embryo testing is too restrictive and there is a problem for embryologists who learn new techniques in a licensed research setting needing to apply those techniques also in a clinical setting. Of course, we welcome the reference in the Bill to the training of persons in the testing of embryos. However, the scope of the clause is very limited, being restricted solely to the techniques of embryo biopsy, which will be needed as part of genetic testing. At present, only a handful of clinics in the country are licensed and very few more are likely to apply, since it is so specialised. Someone will, I am sure, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that only seven clinics are licensed for this technique. On the other hand, all clinics offer embryo freezing, for which improvements in methods are needed; storage methods are evolving to include a technique called vitrification, in which an embryo is placed in a special protective solution for a very short period and then plunged directly into liquid nitrogen. That is proving better than traditional slow freezing, as it seems to protect the embryo better and provide higher intact survival rates on thawing. However, it is more labour-intensive; it needs skill to handle single embryos, one at a time, and to introduce the vitrification solution into the embryo with such precise timing. I go into such detail on this matter because it requires very good training before the technique can be applied to patients’ embryos needed in their therapy. It could be practised using individual cells from embryos that are not suitable for replacement into the patient or when there are not enough cells to allow the embryo to be frozen and thawed using traditional methods. Individual cells could be vitrified and stored overnight then thawed the next day to examine how well the techniques have been applied. In addition, some settings offer techniques such as assisted hatching, whereby the shell of the embryo—or the zona pellucida, as I found out it was called when I did my embryology—has a hole made in it with a laser or acidified solution or simply thinned to improve the chances of the blastocyst hatching on day five or six when replaced in the womb. So it is to overcome the difficulty of there being too thick a shell around the embryo. There are other techniques whereby fragments that detach from some cells in the embryo or when a whole cell is disintegrated can be removed from that embryo prior to implantation, because it is thought that sometimes those fragments prevent implantation in some harmful way. I hope that the Government will consider this probing amendment to see whether we can find ways of broadening the range and availability of training in all these techniques that I have tried to explain.